esrosedotblog

LET THERE BE LIGHT

When we moved here last year, we bought a fan with three floodlights and a control to make them work. Mostly to change the speed of the fan. All was well.

Then we took the floodlights and aimed them. One for the dining table and two directed at two paintings that hang in the dining area.

A couple of months ago, I found myself straining to see when I read at the table. I began to worry that my cataracts were getting worse. But I didn't have trouble seeing anywhere else.

So I asked John to get a higher wattage bulb. Ours was 40. He got 50. Not enough.

Then we talked about aiming all three lights at the table. It involved the ladder so we put it off.

The other day, I was turning the spotlights off. There is a green button. Suddenly the spotlights went brighter. They didn't go off. I had inadvertently held the green button down.

I held it down again. The lights got even brighter. And then BRIGHTER STILL!

Holy keerist. For all this time we have been slowly dimming them as we turned them off and now the "variac" had reversed and were going to bright. The button has a dimmer on it! At full, the lights are almost too bright.

How could this happen? Well, let me count the ways. Start with not reading the instructions. Then move to not ever considering that we were dimming the lights somehow which would have led to further inquiry. I hope.

None of this happened.

For the last couple of days we have been turning the lights up and down and up and down.

I can read again. It is not my cataracts.

Side comment. When I was in college, the dining hall where I worked had a light dimmer. It was enormous. Made by Variac. A transformer.

It was the first dimmer that I had ever seen. I was a hick. We played around with it a lot too. Now, dimmers everywhere. Even when you do not expect them.

How could we have been so dim!

Labels: condo, engineering